Promoting a Free and Christian Alabama

Media Merry Go-Round

Photo by the LA Times

This August, in the wake of more violence and anti-Southern sentiment, we have passed the one-year anniversary of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” Rally. The original event was organised and attended by a variety of persons, ranging from Alt-Righters to Heritage Preservationists. Viewing what one could through the lens of the media, however, a person would believe all rally-goers were no more than skinheads, Neo-Klansmen, and Neo-Nazis. But what was shown on a tv screen and what actually occurred are two very different things. As one person who attended the rally noted, “Hundreds of people were milling around. . . . There were a variety of groups gathered and I saw lot of different flags, many of which I did not recognize. I did not see any Nazi flags at all.”

Now, Nazi LARPers were clearly present, but as the above observer attests, their presence was greatly overblown by the media in order to cast aspersions on the gathering. For most, no doubt, had come to protest the cultural cleansing of this northern portion of Virginia. The ensuing violence, far from being intended by the rally-goers, was a product of Antifa agitation and Police inaction. For anyone witnessing videos of the events, it cannot be said that the police did their duty in Charlottesville. They allowed Antifa to block the route to be taken by the rally-goers, batter the same with a variety of chemical and physical weapons, and then, after the weak-kneed Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency (after most of the rally-goers were well on their way to the meeting point), failed to protect the scattered remnants of the rally from the Antifa mob. The sad (but altogether predictable) fate of the woman killed – the one fatality of the event – would seem to be a product of this utter disorder.

But rather than condemn the individuals of the parties as they stood – the man who killed, the protestors who attacked – the media spun the event as a Nazi love fest and the new rise of an American skinhead movement. As Jack Kerwick explains, the Media-Political Complex was all to happy to use the event for their own ends:

Immediately, elites in Washington D.C. and their fellow travelers in Big Media (of both the “mainstream” and “conservative” varieties) laid the blame solely at the feet of “white supremacists.” Every politician, Democrat and Republican alike, and every commentator, Fox News contributors and talk radio hosts no less than their leftist counterparts on the other networks, spared no opportunity to show the world that they were even more repulsed by this exhibition of “white supremacy” than the next person.

If one doubts the media bias, one need only compare the treatment of the rally-goers with the Ferguson Riots. The latter was heralded as a necessary event, stemming from “a larger, historic narrative about race and justice in America,” as one writer from CNN sympathetically ascribes. Those who act as barbarians in their own city are given a pass to perform their terror. As Boyd Cathey makes clear, the Left (of which the media is a part) makes the rules:

Nary a word about the ultimate and real responsibility of the American Left for a continuing history of violence, nary a word about the responsibility of the so-called “resist Trump” organizations and their actions, nary a word about the uncontrolled rampaging of the Black Lives Matter movement (e.g., Ferguson, Baltimore, etc.), nary a word about the stepped up and planned confrontations by the “antifa” (self-titled “antifascists”) militants. That is, not one word about the history of virulent street action, fire bombing, trashing of private property, and, yes, attempts to kill anyone (e.g., Representative Steve Scalise) to the perceived right of, say, John McCain, anyone who might in any way say a good word about Donald Trump, or defend older American traditions and beliefs.

But as the new year came, Charlottesville again swarmed with the feet of many men and women. How did this new event compare, and what might we learn from its happening? If the actions of this new rally were consistent with the past, then this second rally surely shows that the side taken by the media was one riotously ripe with bias.

As even the ultra-liberal online publication Vox was forced to admit, Leftist agitators behaved like thugs at Charlottesville 2.0, “engag[ing] in violence, throwing eggs and water bottles and shooting fireworks at police officers and some journalists who were covering the demonstrations.” Rally-goers were pumped up with the chant, “Cops and the Klan go hand-in-hand.” Needless to say, at least one cop was attacked during the protest, as well as a slew of journalists. This is merely at Charlottesville – elsewhere, similar acts of violence were committed by Antifa or other individuals so aligned (reports are also coming in that the front-runner for Brazil’s upcoming election may have been knifed by an Antifa member).

But don’t expect the media to report on that. Even while being attacked by the mob, they just go round-and-round.